Thread by @IbnSiqilli

IS-Somalia, which is distantly behind Al-Shabab in the field of jihadi-insurgency in East Africa, released a new propaganda video today showing off, primarily, Ethiopian & Swahili-speaking militants + the requisite somersaulting, jumping, running, crawling training camp footage:

The training camp was named after a dead military trainer, 'Abu Dawud al-Somali." The propaganda film features Amharic and Swahili-speaking fighters including a number identified as being from Ethiopia, some delivering domestic/localized sectarian messaging.

The video includes footage of poetry/nashid recitations by Amharic & Swahili-speaking IS-Somalia militants. The video also includes footage from IS-Somalia assassinations in southern Somalia & bay'a footage to the new IS chief.

#الثقافة_الجهادية (Jihadi Culture)

The film, unsurprisingly, also blasts Al-Shabab (note the crossing out of "mujahideen" in the IS rival's name in the image below) & rejects its (Dec. 2018) lengthy blasting of IS as a "cancer" & spreader (mufsid) of fitna:

CC: @stigjarlehansen ; @HarunMaruf ; @warnjason

Training camp named after trainer "Dawud al-Somali";

A Somali IS-S militant rejects Al-Shabab's previous allegations that the "State" is in league with apostate and "kufr" forces, followed by graphic footage of an execution of a government (Puntland?) soldier & assassinations.

Anashid recitation & #JihadiFood:



#الثقافة_الجهادية (Jihadi Culture)

The late IS-Somalia militant Abu Zubayr al-Habashi with the group's amir, Shaykh 'Abdi Qadir Mu'min:

Abu Muslim al-Muhajir, a now dead IS-Somalia militant from the city of Adama in Ethiopia's Oromia region:

Abu Muslim al-Muhajir said he was a Christian and worked at a church before converting to Islam in 2012, then beginning his own da'wa locally before joining the Muslim Brotherhood, going to prison, becoming a "Murji'a," was introduced to IS-Somalia by a school friend & joined.

Abu Muslim al-Muhajir's first-person autobiographical sketch highlights the importance of inter-personal networks in his decisions to both convert to Islam and, later, to join IS-Somalia.